History repeats itself in a way you wouldn't imagine

Black girl escorted to school, 1960:
On November 14, 1960, nearly 49 years ago, 6 year old Ruby Bridges faced hostile crowds, and had to be escorted by U.S. Marshalls , because she was the first black child to attend previously all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans , Louisiana . Ruby was 6 years old. (The Great Norman Rockwell created the painting above depicting that event.)

That morning, she had only been told by her mother that she was going to be attending a new school that day and 'had better behave.' Little did little Ruby know that she would be bombarded with jeers and even death threats; and that she would end up being the sole

child in her first grade class because all the other children were kept home by their parents. All because Ruby was Black.

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Black girl escorted to school, 2009:
On January 5, 2009, nearly 49 years after Ruby attended her school, 7 year old Sasha Obama, faced cheering schoolmates as she is escorted by her Mother and U. S. Secret Service Agents to Sidwell Friends Elementary School in Washington, DC. Her Mother, the current First Lady of the United States of America , had Secret Service escort because Sasha's daddy is now the 44th President of the United States , Barack Obama.

Source: Anon

Obama US President-elect: Long way coming...

Racism is an old-fashioned fad. The few who still clutch it could be regarded as peculiar. Possibly, looking at history of such persons it might be proved that their minds were warped by teachings of older generations (parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, their "role models"-ugh!). This sad chunk of humanity isn't much different from children who are afraid of spiders.

Black persons have been prominent world over for a long time. Those in sports has a following of a multitude of fans. Jesse Owens, Mohamed Ali, Arthur Ashe, down to today's Brian Lara and Tiger Wood. Entertainment world has Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy and a million more.

When a black person does a good turn, reporting of such story carefully shrouds anything about his origins, his colour. A Tanzanian colleague working in Silicon Valley some three years ago was awarded an information technology patent, something about routers, IP and DNS (computer jargon). We only got to know about it because of email forum with a large following of Tanzanians in diaspora. When a black person makes a hiccup, the world will hear about it. At about the time of patent I just described, another Tanzanian had slaughtered a couple of goats in his apartment in the US, some neighbour rang the cops from the noises the goats made, and prompt arrests were made. The story hit the wires and was all over the place about an African from Tanzania who murdered goats in cold blood showing high degree of cruelty to animals. Some goats that had not yet been slaughtered were "rescued".

Now, by Americans deciding solidly to elect Mr Obama, I can only say, yes, the playing field is getting level. And it is not merely campaigning for one year by Camp Obama. The trail leading to thawing of sinful souls from the days of slavery was long, hard, disherartening. With occasional spikes like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, time moved steadily on towards Obama 2009.

The tiles on that road include Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Richard Roundtree, Diana Ross, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, Isaac Hayes, LeVar Burton, all. Any person of colour that threw in their lot to receive recognition of the World. Not limited to America too. We have had Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, Asha-Rose Migiro, Olushegun Obasanjo, Miriam Makeba (recently deceased, RIP). African soccer stars world over has done a black man proud over years.

I'm feeling good. Things will never be the same again. The Change We Need Is Here!